Morningafter Pie
by Anatomy Melancholia
Summary: A conversation on the morning after Booth and Brennan sleep together, in which pie is used to fill in the awkward silences, and in which Booth, more flustered than ever, tries to make sense of it all.


AN: I don't usually write for _Bones_, so lay on the concrit if you have some.

--

She stared at him with the same intensity she used to divest scalded bones of their microscopic secrets, and Booth shifted uneasily.

"It's not such a big deal," he insisted, the words disjointed as his restless shifting, shoulders hunching to emphasize his discomfort.

"Yes, it is!" she shot back. "You never call me that."

Booth stroked his jaw in a decidedly un-Booth-like manner. "Yeah-- well, we never did _that_...before either. Right?"

Temperance said, "Sex" in her clear, anthropologically omniscient and very carrying tone, just as his plate of pie arrived, complete with whipped cream and curious waitress.

He virtually inhaled his mouthful - any excuse to look away from the smirks breaking out like a rash in the cafe.

She said, "We had sex, Booth."

This time her tone was softer, just a hint of puzzlement breaking through. As though he didn't remember. As though she hadn't said it the first time.

"I re_mem_ber, Bones."

"So then, _why_--" she started, leaning dangerously forward.

The cleavage broke the spell. Booth found himself matching her posture. "We had sex," he said, half-apologetic because really, now that he brought himself to think of it, who took a woman out for coffee and pie after half the night re-enacting a low-budget version of _How To Make Love Like a Porn Star_? "Sex- changes things."

"How does it change what you call me?"

Booth took another bite of pie, ignoring the teasing note in 'Coward' as she muttered it into her coffee cup. "It's more intimate," he said when he'd finished chewing. "And sex is intimate. So I thought-- You know what? It is intimate. Using someone's name is intimate."

"Not _my_ name. You always call me 'Bones'."

"Yeah. But this is different."

Left out was the implied 'We're different now' but she'd known Booth long enough to be able to read that cliche into his words. There was silence for longer than either of them was comfortable with.

Temperance broke first, perhaps because she was the one who refused to play games. "What kind of changes?"

"Huh?"

"You said sex changes things."

"You know..." Booth looked around the room warily. "Talking, interaction, emotions. Where-do-we-go-from-here."

"It's just sex," she said plaintively. Then, "Are you embarrassed?"

"What? No, I'm not embarrassed. It just...happened." His eyes warmed as he smiled briefly. "We just, you know, need to figure out where we go from here."

Temperance looked thoughtful. "Well, anthropologically speaking there's research to suggest that there's a psycho-social dimorphism in our motivations for a one-night stand. Low-involvement sexual promiscuity is a way of enhancing one's status, but it's also a transitory event."

She sat back and let academia say what she couldn't. "The morning after, one or both parties could be feeling a sense of shame or guilt because they have engaged in sexual activity that doesn't meet their emotional needs or any procreational requirements. You have what they're calling 'the walk of shame' on college campuses."

Booth stared at her. Frat jargon had finally made it into Bones' hallowed halls. And out her deviously logical mouth. "This is not a walk of shame, Bones!"

"Why else are you so awkward?"

He laughed awkwardly. "I'm not."

"See! That laugh. Haw _haw haw_. That's not how you laugh. You're awkward."

"Well, maybe you should be too!"

"Why? We're both consenting adults. We both enjoyed ourselves-" Temperance stopped short, questioningly.

He was galvanized into speech. "No! Yes. Yes. Of course." He really wanted to touch her because touching her right now would be much easier than talking to her, though God knows, talking to Bones was like digging in a rock pool - sometimes there were crabs, occasionally coral that grew up fragile and glowing with the colours of the rainbow.

"Bones," he said, reaching across the table for her hand. "No regret."

She had that logical glint in her eyes again. "Sometimes there's a delayed reaction--"

"Shut up," he said lovingly. And then quite deliberately, "Tempe."

She started to laugh, loud guffawing sounds of mirth that dragged him into chuckling at her. Around the room, the smirks turned to smiles.

There were no tears with her laughter and Temperance wondered for the hundredth time why the phrase was so popular. And Booth - _Seely - _sitting across from her, no tears in his eyes either. What terrible names they both had, she thought, the laughter bubbling away inside her again.

"Does this mean," she asked softly, mindful of their audience, "that you want to _do it_ again tonight?"

Booth crammed the rest of the pie into his mouth and signalled for the cheque.


End file.
